How Rural Healthcare Organizations Improve Connections with Patients

There’s also a newly introduced wayfinding tool for hospital patients and visitors. Today, when someone arrives at the facility and isn’t sure where to go, they can either talk to a hospital volunteer or scan a QR code with their phone to get personalized directions based on their location. “You don’t have to download or sign up for anything,” Milam says.

When it comes to patient engagement, Vail Health evolves as new technologies become available and interoperability between systems becomes more feasible, adds CIO Julie Jackson: “If it’s technology that can augment our human resources, that’s something we’re interested in.”

Across Colorado Mountain Medical (a Vail Health network of primary and specialty care providers), for instance, they just adopted a patient “accelerator” tool that allows the organization to text patients about last-minute appointment openings due to cancellations. CMM is also currently onboarding a real-time scheduling platform.

“We want to put healthcare at your fingertips,” Jackson says. “When we do that, everyone wins.”

Integrated Platforms Improve Patient Access for Rural Communities

For the 1 in 5 people who live in rural America, accessing healthcare has become harder than ever. More than 70% of hospital closures in recent years have occurred in rural areas, and yet rural residents are disproportionately older and sicker than their urban counterparts.

That disconnect has led some healthcare organizations to ramp up patient outreach in an effort to ensure the people in their communities get the care they need. For some, this has meant learning to lean on technology, from automated appointment reminders to virtual care.

One way that facilities have found success is by using EHRs that either come with built-in patient engagement tools or that can integrate such technologies.

“Less common are piecemeal solutions,” says Mike Rowland, a telehealth specialist with the National Rural Health Resource Center. “Most are moving toward platforms that easily work together.”

Many of these are cloud-based solutions that are capable of analyzing relevant patient data to tailor communications appropriately, Rowland says. “Let’s say you have a patient who is due for a mammogram or maybe needs a flu shot. An embedded system can help the provider recognize that and message the patient to schedule an appointment,” he adds.

Streamlining patient engagement was the goal when Mammoth Hospital turned to Oracle Health’s Unified Consumer Communications in 2022. Located in California’s Sierra Nevada, the hospital struggled with high no-show rates and had trouble communicating with patients during the mountain region’s frequent weather emergencies.

“Around here, we measure snow in feet,” says Zack Brown, Mammoth Hospital’s director of outpatient clinics and community engagement. With bidirectional text messaging offered through the UCC solution, patients can still be reached when storms occur.

“We can text them to tell them we’re closing early or to see if they’re going to make it to their appointment on time, and they can respond immediately to reschedule if needed,” Brown says.

The platform also includes appointment reminder functionality that’s helped Mammoth Hospital cut its no-show rate in half. An SMS-campaign feature allows the organization to message multiple patients at once.

“We can stratify patients with our EHR based on factors such as insurance plan or shared health conditions, and then we can dump that into UCC and send out a mass text,” Brown says. Communicating this way can be better for patients because they can respond when it’s convenient for them, including during off-hours.

“In my opinion, the top driver for healthcare outcomes is access. We’re improving access by giving patients another avenue to connect with us,” Brown adds.

READ MORE: Get the most out of your electronic health record.

Remote Patient Monitoring Helps in Chronic Disease Management

The University of Mississippi Medical Center also wanted to improve patient access to care when it launched the UMMC Center for Telehealth more than two decades ago. The Jackson, Miss.-based organization relies on telehealth tools to care for patients in rural and underserved communities in each of the state’s 82 counties.

“As an academic medical center, we’re not in the business of putting up hospitals,” says Tearsanee Carlisle Davis, the center’s director of clinical programs and strategy. Telehealth allows UMMC to reach patients who would otherwise have to travel for specialty care, and it helps support local providers who don’t have the the medical center’s resources.

One way this happens is through a remote patient monitoring program for people with diabetes. Using glucose monitors that connect via Bluetooth to Apple iPad Mini tablet devices, patients automatically send blood sugar information directly to their providers. The devices are free and include cellular service so patients don’t need an internet connection.

“In the traditional model, providers don’t know what’s happening with their patients until they come into the clinic,” Davis says. “With remote monitoring, they can track them in close to real time, and patients don’t have to leave their homes.”

Participants in the program, which is covered by insurance, can also use the tablet devices to text their providers, Davis says. UMMC offers similar services for patients with chronic conditions such as hypertension and asthma.

Davis grew up in a rural county, she says, so she understands what it’s like for patients who don’t live close to a hospital. “If there’s anything we can do to help them access care, we’re going to do it,” she adds.